Weekend Leftovers: Arizona's Defense Was Actually Pretty Solid

The good news: Yes, Arizona was in a tight one with Toledo, but for a team whose opponent actually was moving the ball at a faster pace than itself, the outcome on the defensive side shouldn't be considered as much as a worry as you might have first thought. Per Rich Rodriguez:

"I'm really proud of the defense. Toledo had 94 offensive plays and we had some guys on defense who were on the field all 94 plays. We need to improve our depth but those guys really played hard and hung in there."

Greg Hansen noted that a team has run more plays against the Wildcats just three times in history. So all of a sudden, 358 yards (161 on the ground and 197 through the air) for the Rockets doesn't look so bad. That's 3.4 yards per rush and 4.2 yards per pass -- take away a bomb on the Shaquille Richardson bite and those numbers look even better.

Led by Jake Fischer's 13 tackles, former walk-on Jared Tevis shined at his roving position with 12 tackles and so did current walk-on Sir Thomas Jackson, who had seven. The team combined for two sacks -- Marquis Flowers was in on both, while Sione Tuihalamaka assisted on one -- and eight tackles for loss.

Quotable: RichRod on John Bonano's missed kicks.

"John (Bonano) will make those; he's made them in practice the past few weeks. He's a good kicker and he will bounce back. After he missed the one at the end of regulation, I told the guys, ‘we can hang our heads for one second but they need to come right back up.'"

By the way, there's not much chance for a replacement. Transfer Jake Smith has a leg injury and the backup kicker was the women's soccer manager that was brought onto the team on Friday, according to Pat Finley.

Award-worthy: Matt Scott's career day led to some after-the-fact accolades.